Dogs and cats are wonderful creatures and very popular companions for the pet owners and families. They protect the owner's home and family. However, every time the animal eats or drinks, waste metabolites will be generated and released. The owner must be responsible for the waste clean-up of house-bound pets. Even though many pets are trained, there can be inadvertent accidents. It would be especially bad during the hot summers or cold winter to remove animal waste from the house. The smell could be stifling for family members. The urine smell could be strong enough that it would be embarrassing for the family to bring guests over.
It is common for the animal to accidently release waste at any area in the house. It is desirable to clean pet messes as quickly and thoroughly as possible. When the waste is on the carpet, it takes effort to identify the odiferous areas of the carpet. Sometimes black-light source detection is needed to identify dried urine spots. For deep-cleaning the problem areas, one must use a steam carpet-cleaning machine or a carpet-shampoo machine, not a typical vacuum. Other times, one must use an enzymatic pet odor-neutralizing powder on the affected areas. Many other efforts must be taken to remove pet-odor.
Cleaning urine and feces of the pet is an unpleasant but essential task of pet ownership. This task is particularly burdensome for those who live in tall apartment buildings, or travel with their pets. It is desirable to have a device for preventing a pet from touching the waste in order to keep house floor clean. Many pet owners have trained the pet to go outside for releasing waste metabolites. However, the family member may find it very inconvenient in scheduling to let their pets out and/or take them on walks for toilet purposes, or in the case of airports—impossible. If one is delayed in going back home due to a variety of reasons, the animal, after experiencing a long period of stress, may have to release the waste in the house and cause a number of issues. Similarly, travel delays could strand a pet for hours inside of the airport. For maintaining a civilized life, a pet needs a functional toilet. The owner family will ultimately receive a number of benefits like (1) less involvement in cleaning waste materials; (2) ease in maintaining a clean house; (3) less worry that their pet would cause an accident if a functional toilet were to be provided.
Currently, a number of animal toilets are available. WizDog Indoor Potty System for Dogs is a plastic tray covered with a mesh. This device is very useful for collecting urine and largely prevents wet paw tracking throughout the house. It is a simple and low-cost pet toilet in the house. However, when the pet is not standing in the right position on the device, quite often, urine or feces can fall outside of the collecting tray. To ensure the accuracy for waste materials to fall within the tray, the pet needs a guide. Hence, the device needs to be improved. The current invention will resolve this issue.
An animal litter disclosed by Takeshi et al. (U.S. Pat. No. 7,467,600) comprises a plurality of granular materials having water-shedding properties and second granular material having liquid-absorbing properties. Although this system has advantages, the granular materials can easily be brought to the house floor by an animal. Therefore, a better device for indoor use needs to be developed.
Other prior art devices for collecting pet waste are shown in the Gloor U.S. Pat. No. 7,434,539; Dennis U.S. Pat. No. 4,117,555; the Clark U.S. Pat. No. 4,979,469 and the Hochman U.S. Patent Publication No. 2004/0011297. Although each of those prior arts is uniquely useful, there is no mean for a dog or cat to use a human toilet. An ideally-functional animal toilet needs to be developed.
Other prior art devices for training animal, for giving animal a beauty looking, and others, cited here, U.S. Pat. No. 7,467,600 December 2008 Ikegami; U.S. Pat. No. 7,481,021, January 2009 Riddell; U.S. Pat. No. 7,464,668 December 2008 Brewington; U.S. Pat. No. 7,395,784 July 2008 Hirokawa; U.S. Pat. No. 7,434,539 October 2008, Gloor; U.S. Pat. No. 7,373,673 May 2008 Holland; U.S. Pat. No. 7,479,889 January 2009 Kazdin; U.S. Pat. No. 7,444,959 November 2008 Hensley, are very useful for the designed purposes, but all cannot meet the toilet need of a civilized animal.
Cohen disclosed an animal toilet in his U.S. Pat. No. 3,601,093. However, he failed to provide a defined space for an animal to open and leave freely. The device taught by Cohen is a cage. The animal owner has to open and close the cage for an animal to release waste materials. His invention has so many small pieces and is very hard to put onto the human toilet for animal to use. It would take a lot effort to assembly or disassembly the device taught by Cohen in his #093 patent. In addition, Cohen's device used a mat, not washable by flushing the toilet. Therefore, Cohen's invention requires a significant amount of direct efforts from the animal's owner. Cohen disclosed an animal toilet in his Ser. No. 04/231,321. However, he failed to provide a defined space for an animal safety stand within. The space taught by Cohen is an open area without any boundary. There is a risk for an animal to fall out of the open space. The device taught by Cohen is specifically used by an animal. In many families, that creates a rather difficulty since not many family can have a dedicated toilet for animals. It would take a lot effort to assembly or disassembly the device taught by Cohen in his #321 patent. Cohen taught an extended downwardly through the opening of the seat or through the opening of the porcelain basin and preventing horizontal displacement of the support space thereupon. This is an extension, not a sealer, not an adaptor. Therefore, this apparatus cannot prevent leakage of the waste material.
Wooten disclosed a wall-surrounded space in his Ser. No. 04/748,700. However, there was lack of a defined one-way entry and one-way exit design for the animal to enter and exit in the same direction within the provided space. In Wooten's space, an animal can move to any direction, which can cause randomly touching and spreading fecal materials. One of the important purposes of the animal toilet is to prevent animal to spread waste materials. Therefore, there is a real need to have a more functional device.